


tell me tell me you'll keep me

by nirav



Series: a child of god, much like yourself [14]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 07:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6647158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirav/pseuds/nirav
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>tumblr prompt: " something where alex/lucy break their myriad mind control, you can choose which one saves the other"</p>
<p>[aka, Alex does not approve of Lucy's life choices, Kara is not helpful, and Vasquez is a treasure and a gift.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	tell me tell me you'll keep me

It’s not Myriad.  Myriad was destroyed, the technology broken to pieces and melted down into nothing.  

It’s not Myriad.

It’s not Myriad.  Alex refuses to believe that Myriad wasn’t destroyed, wasn’t ripped apart.  There is absolutely no way that the reports they’re getting of drone-like human activity at the Naval base 200 miles south of National City is Myriad.

“Ma’ams,” Vasquez say, mouth a narrow line and shoulders tense.  “It’s Myriad.”

* * *

Turns out that, in his clear genius and foresight, Maxwell Lord didn’t disable the satellites he had in orbit that had been used to distribute the Myriad signal.  From his house arrest video conference, waiting while the FBI structures its case against him, he claims that the software was updated, the protections solidified, to ensure that nothing could piggyback off of the satellites again.

Unsurprisingly, he was wrong, and now there are Marines standing blankly all over the base.  

“What the--” Lucy mumbles.  She zooms in the security feed on the dock, rewinding and playing it again.  “This is a  _ robbery _ ?”

“What?”

She rewinds again and pauses, pointing to where a team of Marines are moving while the rest stand uselessly still.  She fast forwards to them disappearing into a bunker, and then reappearing with a series of crates.

“Shit,” Alex mutters.  She grabs at Vasquez’s shoulder.  “What the hell are they taking?”

Vasquez flies through a series of searches, identifying the crates’ serial numbers and coming up with a collection of missiles.

“Shit,” Lucy says.

* * *

They replicated a half dozen of Lord’s blocking devices, as a precaution, but it’s not enough for a full team to support Kara.

“Supergirl,” Alex says over the comms.  “We’re mobilizing a small team and scrambling a jet, ETA ten minutes.”

She straps on a bulletproof vest and is loading up in the armory when Lucy appears next to her, arming up as well.

“What are you--”

“Vasquez has command,” Lucy says shortly.  “You’re not going in alone.”

“Director, Major,” Vasquez says in their earpieces.  “Two minutes to take off.”

“Fine,” Alex mutters.  “Let’s go. “ She pauses just long enough to grip Lucy’s hand for a short moment and add “Be careful” before they board the jet.

* * *

They land as Kara is zipping around the robbers, snatching crates out of their hands and depositing them on rooftops and far out of reach, her speed sending them reeling each time she whizzes by.  Alex drops from the plane first, Lucy right behind her, and she tackles the first of the robbers to the ground.

“We got this,” she yells at Kara.  “Go find the source.”

Kara nods, pausing just long enough to scan the area and confirm that Alex and Lucy and their team have the robbers in custody before flying off.  Alex jams her knee into the back of the man she has a hold on, dropping him down and cranking a ziptie tightly around his wrists.  To her left, Lucy does the same with her robber; all around them are neutralized Marines staring blankly ahead; half of them are bleeding out of the nose.

They have the robbers restrained and collected within a few minutes, half of the team standing over them with weapons at the ready, and Alex walks away with Lucy, pushing at the comm in her ear.  Around them, more of the Marines are starting to bleed, the signal rupturing blood vessels.

“What’s the status?”

“Working on it, ma’am,” Vasquez says from the DEO.  “We pinpointed the signal origination to a satellite farm and Supergirl is on the way.”

“Okay,” Alex says, letting out a slow breath.  She mutes her radio, hands on her hips as she paces in front of Lucy.  “How the hell did this happen?  The original data, all of the pieces, I thought we got confirmation that they were destroyed.”

“Lord said there may have been program pieces still embedded in the software in the satellites,” Lucy says, rubbing at her forehead.  “If this is just pieces of the program then who knows how it’s actually going to affect people in the long term, if it’s going to cause lasting damage if they even survive this”

Gunshots sound out behind them and two of their team drop, blown back by the impact of a bullet to the vest; Alex yanks her weapon up and fires, aiming for the minute muzzle flash coming from the perimeter.  The prisoners scatter, running with their hands tied, and one of them barrels straight towards Alex, driving into her abdomen with his shoulder like a linebacker.  The impact lifts her off her feet and slams her into the ground, her head cracking on the dirt, the helmet barely protecting her and the blocking device connected to her earpiece, the only protection she has against Myriad, cracks and sparks and dies.

Lucy shoots, the bullet landing precisely in the temple of the man who tackled Alex and dropping him, and skids over to Alex’s side.  Alex’s eyes are unfocused, a cut on her temple leaking blood, and her earpiece and mic and everything attached to it flickers and flashes once, twice--

“No, no, no,” Lucy mutters.  “Alex, don’t let this--  _ shit _ ,” she grinds out when Alex’s eyes go blank.  

“Vasquez, we’re taking fire and need backup right now,” she snaps into the intercom.  “Get Supergirl back here.  Danvers is on point.”  She disconnects her mic and, with a deep breath, yanks her earpiece out and fits it around Alex’s ear instead.  It lights up and activates, the shielding going up around Alex’s mind just in time for her to come back and see Lucy’s eyes go dead.

“Lucy,” Alex mumbles, shaking her head and wincing.  “Lucy, what--”  She grabs at Lucy’s shoulders, shaking them.  There’s no reaction, Lucy’s body moving too easily under her hands, her eyes empty.  “What did you do--”

Lucy sits on her heels at Alex’s side, not moving.  Another round of gunshots rings out, and Alex throws Lucy to the ground, diving on top of her.   A bullet nicks Alex’s forearm and  rips through Lucy’s bicep anyways, and she’s silent even as Alex grinds out a curse.  A shadow covers them and metallic ricochets echo as Kara lands and blocks the bullets.

“What happened?” Kara asks, ducking over them to block more shots and helping Alex hoist Lucy up.

“She gave me her goddamned earpiece,” Alex grunts.  “ _ Fuck _ .”  Kara grabs them both around the waist and pushes off, leaping and landing on the roof of a bunker.  “You need to disarm them, there are too many innocent people--”

“On it.” Kara flies off once more, leaving Alex alone with Lucy.  

“Vasquez, what’s the status on stopping this goddamned signal?” Alex snaps, pushing Lucy to sit and snapping her fingers in front of her face, shaking her shoulders, pushing her hands against Lucy’s cheeks desperately.  She yanks a pocketknife out and cuts Lucy’s sleeve away, inspecting the bullet wound and pausing, barely, because the bullet went clean through without hitting anything vital.  Her fingers shake as she unbuckles Lucy’s helmet, her hands moving constantly from Lucy’s cheek to her hair to her pulse.

“We have two jets on the way,” Vasquez crackles over the radio.  “They’re at least ten minutes out.”

“Fuck.” Alex rips apart the remains of Lucy’s sleeve that she’d cut away and wraps them gently around Lucy’s arm, her teeth grinding together when it only partially halts the bleeding.  “Get them there faster, I don’t care how you do it.”  She peers over the ledge on the roof Kara left them on, just in time to see Kara flashing by and taking down a man with a sniper rifle.  

“Supergirl, what’s your status?”

“I think I found them all,” Kara huffs over the comms.  She drops down on a roof two buildings away, dumping three disarmed and ziptied men as she does.  “How’s L-- Major Lane?”

Alex doesn’t answer, crouching back down in front of Lucy, who stares blankly ahead.  Alex yanks the mic free from her comm, disconnecting her radio, and grabs at Lucy’s shoulders again.

“Come on, Lucy,” she says, a desperate edge creeping into her voice.  “I know you’re in there, I know you can hear me.  You beat this once, I know you can do it again.”  There’s no response, and Alex’s hands, sweaty and dirty with bloody knuckles, press against Lucy’s cheeks, curl into her sweaty hair, reach for any sign of Lucy inside of Myriad.  

“Lucy, please,” she says.  Her voice creaks with the strain, her jaw clenching around the words.  “You have to snap out of this, I need you to be okay, just--  _ please _ .

“I need you to snap out of this.”  Her chest aches, new and different than the throbbing from being tackled, a sharp press behind her sternum spiking up into her throat.   “Goddammit, Lucy, wake up, I need you to-- please, just wake up.”  

Her voice finally cracks, breaking on the last word as her fingers grasp at the back of Lucy’s neck.  It’s enough, somehow, and Lucy gasps abruptly, chest heaving under her vest as if she hasn’t breathed the entire time she was under Myriad.  Alex chokes out her own breath, hands still latched onto Lucy, and yanks her forward, holding her too tightly to breathe.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” she whispers into Lucy’s shoulder, a hand buried in her hair.  “What the hell is wrong with you, why would you--”

Lucy says something into Alex’s shoulder, her words muffled, but Alex doesn’t pull back to allow her to speak for long seconds.  

“After the first time, after what it made you do,” Lucy says when Alex finally loosens her grip.  “I didn’t-- you shouldn’t have had to deal with it again, I--”

Alex kisses her, messy and frantic.  “You’re an idiot,” she says again.  “Don’t you  _ ever _ do that to me again, I can’t-- you, I can’t lose you, okay?  I  _ can’t _ .”

“Alex-- oh, Lucy, you’re okay,” Kara says, landing beside them.  She hugs them both tightly, briefly, before Alex can even untangle herself from Lucy.    “Vasquez, I’m heading back to the signal site.”  She launches off the roof, disappearing into the sky, and Alex stares after her, still gripping tightly to Lucy.

“We should--” Lucy starts.  “The rest of the team.”

“Right,” Alex says, finally letting go.  “Right.”  She pushes up to her feet, offering a hand to Lucy.  Lucy allows herself to be pulled up, wincing and pressing a hand against her forehead.

“Ow,” she mumbles.  “I don’t think it hurt that much last time.”

“It’s not the exact same signal,” Alex says, one hand on Lucy’s pulse and the other pulling one of her eyes open wider to inspect it.

“Stop that,” Lucy says, swatting at her hands.  “I’m fine.”

“You were  _ shot _ .”

“It barely counts, there’s no real--”

“You’re staying in medical overnight,” Alex says.  She hands Lucy her weapon.  “No arguments.”

“I am not--”

“Lucy, please,” Alex says quietly, and Lucy pauses.  “Just-- please.  24 hours.”

“Okay,” Lucy says.  “24 hours.”

* * *

Kara makes it to the satellite farm just after the jets do, zooming through and dismantling the entire apparatus in record time.  Whoever set it up is nowhere to be found, but by the time she’s back at the DEO Alex already has a team of analysts working the problem.  Kara pauses to touch base with Vasquez and then breezes into medical, stopping to check on the wounded soldiers before barreling into the room where Alex and Lucy are.

“Hey,” Lucy says, waving tiredly.  She’s wired into too many machines, connected at the head and the heart and the hand, an abundance of quiet beeps filling the room.  Her arm is bandaged, her fingers still tingling from the nerve tests run by the doctors.  Alex sits slumped in a chair by her bed, head tipped back.  There’s a bandage taped neatly over her forehead, a splint on her right wrist, another bandage neatly circling her forearm just below the elbow.

“Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah,” Alex says, head lolling forward so she can smile at Kara.  “Bit bruised, but fine.”

“All good,” Lucy says with a smile of her own.  “Thanks for doing the heavy lifting.  We need to--”

“Nuh uh,” Alex says, cutting her off.  “No working.  You’re under observation.  Doctor’s orders.  24 hours and then you get checked out again.  Until then, you’re inactive.”

“I’m not the one who got kicked in the head, you know,” Lucy grumbles.  “You’re inactive, too.”

“Director Danvers, Major Lane,  _ both  _ of you are inactive,” Vasquez says from the door, standing taller than normal with the temporary directorship assigned to her.  “We’re in progress on tracking down the origin of the signal and are working with the NSA to track it.  We’re also working in conjunction with the Air Force and NASA regarding dismantling the Lordtech satellites and will be moving forward with bringing them out of orbit in the next 72 hours.”

“Thank you,” Alex says tiredly.  

“Seems we’re in good hands,” Lucy adds.  Vasquez clears her throat, looking down at her feet momentarily before looking back up at the two of them.

“For the record, Director Danvers,” she says.  “Your mic wasn’t off all the way.”

“Shit,” Alex groans out.  

“I routed the feed so I was the only one to hear it,” Vasquez continues on.  “But I felt it would be disingenuous to not let you know that I-- ah-- I heard what--”

“Noted,” Lucy says.  “Thank you for your honesty.”

“Yes ma’am.” Vasquez snaps back to attention and turns to leave.

“Susan,” Alex says.  Vasquez looks back to her uncertainly, and Alex smiles.  “Thanks.”

“Yes ma’am,” she says again.  She leaves the door open behind her, and Alex slumps back down in her chair.

“What was she--” Kara starts to ask.

“Nothing,” Lucy and Alex say simultaneously.  

Kara’s eyebrows creep up, her mouth turning up into a smile.  “Right, nothing.  I’ll just leave you two here to talk about nothing, then.”

She disappears out of the room, shutting the door behind her.  Alex huffs out a sigh and leans her chin on her hand, only to wince and sit up straighter, her wrist too tender to support the weight.

“This is the third time you’ve fractured that arm,” Lucy says quietly.  “In like two years.  And the second concussion.”

“It’s fine,” Alex says, waving her free hand dismissively.  “I’m not the one who got  _ shot _ .  Or who let herself get attacked by a computer signal that may have made her head explode.”

“So I should have just let  _ you _ get attacked by it?”

“Yes!”

“Do you think I don’t know what that did to you last time?” Lucy snaps.  “Alex, I sleep next to you almost every night.  I know the nightmares you have.”

“Clearly you  _ don’t _ because then you would know that they include me killing  _ you _ under Myriad, too!”

“What?” Lucy says softly.  

Alex takes a deep breath, leaning her forehead on her uninjured hand.

“Alex,” Lucy says.  “Can you-- will you at least look at me?”  She gets nothing from Alex, who stays slumped over in her chair, forehead cradled in her hand and shoulders bowed.  Lucy kicks the blankets off her feet and disconnects the abundance of monitors and machines she’s wired to, sliding off the bed to stand with a chorus of angry beeps surrounding her.  

Alex’s head jerks up at the sound of the equipment alarms.  “What-- hey, what the hell, you’re--”

“I’m fine,” Lucy says.  She takes the few steps over to where Alex sits, hands falling on her shoulders.  She winces, the wound in her arm aching, but she doesn’t flinch and doesn’t move away from Alex.  Her hands move to Alex’s jaw, curling around and pulling until she looks up.

“I can’t do this without you,” Alex says quietly.  

“Of course you can,” Lucy says.  “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.  Aliens included.”

“No, I’m not-- I can’t, Lucy.  I can’t lose you.”  Alex’s jaw clenches under Lucy’s fingers.  “Do you get that?  I  _ can’t _ .”

“You don’t-- you don’t need me, Alex,” Lucy says, shaking her head.  “You’re smart and strong and so capable, you don’t need me for--”

“I can’t do this on my own,” Alex says.  “I need Kara because she’s my sister and I need  _ you _ because you’re--”  She bites down on the words and cuts herself off.  Her fingers grip at Lucy’s wrists, holding her hands in place, too tight for her own fractured wrist but unwavering anyways.  “You understand, right?  That I can’t do this without you.”

“You don’t--”

“Dammit, Lucy,” Alex interrupts, surging out of her seat and kissing her, heavy and messy with hands grabbing too tightly at Lucy’s waist.  Her forehead falls against Lucy’s.   “Stop saying that!”

“If you’d let me finish,” Lucy says quietly.  She presses her hands against Alex’s cheeks carefully.  “I was going to say that you don’t have to do this without me.  Ever.”

“Oh,” Alex mumbles.  “Oh.”  She relaxes, finally, her body bowing tiredly against Lucy’s frame.

“Come on,” Lucy says.  She turns, pulling Alex with her and backing her over to the bed, manhandling her onto it and ignoring Alex’s tired protests.  “Shut up and fall asleep with me, Danvers.  Don’t try to pretend you didn’t just romantically freak out at me.”

“I didn’t--” Alex sighs, slumping down against the pillows and pulling Lucy down next to her.  “Fine.  Whatever.”

Lucy settles on her side and pushes at Alex’s hair, fingers following the bandage on her forehead.  “I wasn’t kidding, you know,” she says quietly.  “I’m not going anywhere.  And you’d better not, either.”

“Okay,” Alex says.  She curls closer, the bed too small for two people, until she’s half-wrapped around Lucy.  Lucy is quiet, Alex’s head on her chest and her one hand curled around Alex’s wrist, holding onto her heartbeat as she falls asleep.

  
  



End file.
